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Gang I'm losing my mind. Full grid, worked out the 'symbol', have put the 20 numbers in the correct order (I think??? I have a couple of ones that are up in the air) and now... brick wall. Is this a subsitution cyper? Could somebody confirm I have the right order of numbers please?

spoilers spoilers spoilers etc

34 20 9 8 16 34 26 18 4 33 17 2

Order of numbers correct. The phrase is 3,3,2,3,9
Substitution code.

Thank you thank you! Big PDM. What an ordeal. The "solvers must act in keeping with the theme" was a lovely bit of cheekiness.

Jings, crivvens and help ma boab! There was an awful lot in that one! 40a was a nice little Easter egg, too. Many thanks, Sauce! (And, yes, “sauce” is certainly the word for the first sentence of the preamble!)

Got there eventually - thanks to all for the theme hints. Probably a coincidence, but the author of thematic radio adaptation is in the grid starting at second letter of 20A, though not in a straight line (one change of direction after fourth letter).

Long time lurker, first time poster (and thanks for all the help on previous puzzles!) –– this was the comment that confirmed I was on the right track after struggling for a while with the thematic phrase, so particular thanks to krauton today.

I have a question that I hope isn't too spoiler-y. I couldn't have cracked the numeric code without hints from this thread and having completed every other aspect of the endgame first... my question is: how did people approach decoding the string of digits into the five-word phrase? Am I missing some mathematical way of crunching it out, or was it simply a matter of staring at the string of numbers looking for something that resembled a thematic phrase that you'd already found? Or essentially reverse-engineering it at the end like I did? Thanks in advance.

I could make a pretty good guess as what the first and fourth words were, giving me enough letters to get the fifth. Others may have had a different experience, of course.

Aha! Right. I should have spotted the repetition in the sequence. Makes much more sense now. Thanks, buddy. I think one thing that misdirected me throughout the endgame is the wording in the preamble... having finished, I wouldn't have said that the phrase was the "theme" of the puzzle. The eponym, the context or the 395, yes - but the phrase doesn't strike me as being the "theme"...

I went the same route, Buddy. The repeated 342 caught my eye and assuming I had that right, the 4 and the double 3 in the final 9 figure string along with the terminal 2 threw up just 3 possibilities in the Chambers app, including one that just had to be right.